HM Customs and Revenue, the Government department which collects our taxes, has lost a couple of computer discs in the post. Nothing unusual in that - big organisations lose little things all the time. It's no great hardship - just make another copy and do what you were going to do with it anyway.
Not so simple!
The discs in question contained personal details - names, National Insurance numbers, bank account details, possibly even bra sizes - of about 25 million people. That's not far short of half the population of the UK!
The top dog of HMCR resigned as soon as the news broke - even though he probably had no input into the operation in question.
The poor junior clerk who actually packed up and sent the discs by insecure means was also forced to resign - even though he or she was probably only following orders from above.
The people who actually decided that sending sensitive information via a private delivery service without even a means to track their progress seem to be getting off Scot free!
Banks and other financial institutions have gone into overdrive - probably at no small expense - in an effort to protect their customers from any fraud caused by the release of their customers' details.
Hopefully the discs will turn up in some obscure office in a Government department and it will be discovered that no harm was done. But the harm has already been done. Confidence in the ability of the people who collect our taxes has always been low - now it is non-existent!
Furthermore, a most important Government department could possibly face prosecution under the Data Protection Act. This Act is there to protect the ordinary citizen from the misuse of data held about them by banks, businesses, Government departments - in fact anybody who puts your personal details onto a computer or other means of storing information. Obviously losing data such as these breaches such legislation. So HMCR could face prosecution. A massive fine could be imposed, especially if - as they should - they treat each one of the 25,000,000 as a separate case.
But who would pick up the bill for the fines - and the expensive legal costs involved?
The ordinary everyday taxpayer in the UK.
In other words YOU and ME!
Shit happens . . . we're all on a loser either way!
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1 comment:
That's a very good point!
What gets me with all these things is that the people in charge never resign - they get paid huge salleries , often for doing very little work, because they have to "carry the can" but they never do. Ian Blair is another example of this.
I agree it probably isn't Darling's fault - and if it can be shown that he had clearly indicated the need for secure handling of data and everyone else had ignored his warnings he should stay - but otherwise, he should go!
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